I don’t really like Lightroom folders and collections, or at least the way they (don’t) work together in Lightroom Classic CC. Quite often, you can be browsing photos in a collection and wish you could quickly see the rest of the pictures in the same folder. Or you might be looking at pictures in a […]
Lightroom reviews, tips and tutorials
Lightroom is Adobe's all-in-one photo organizing, RAW processing and editing tool. It can be used on its own or alongside Photoshop, which is designed for more complex editing and illustration work.
You can only get Lightroom as part of Adobe's various subscription plans. The Adobe Photography Plan page explains these in more detail.
There are now two versions of Lightroom, which makes things more complicated. Lightroom Classic CC is the more powerful 'traditional' version which use images stored locally on your computer. Lightroom CC is a newer, slimmed-down version that uses cloud-based storage where all your images are available everywhere. This Lightroom CC vs Lightroom Classic CC comparison explains the key differences.
Boost your black and white shots with the Lightroom Clarity slider
The Clarity slider in Lightroom Classic and Lightroom CC adds a powerful localised contrast effect that can work well on colour shots, but really comes into its own with black and white. It recaptures the some of the punchiness of old black and white films without pushing the overall contrast out of control. Here’s an […]
How to make Lightroom, Photoshop and Smart Objects work together
Despite the name of this site, I’ve got nothing against Photoshop! Even if it doesn’t have all the effects filters and organising tools you might be looking for (hence this site), it’s still worth having in your software armoury, especially if you get a good deal on an Adobe Photoshop CC subscription. Photoshop has limitations, […]
Get more natural results with this Lightroom HDR effect
HDR (high dynamic range techniques) are sometimes necessary to cope with scenes that have a higher dynamic range than the camera’s sensor can cope with. But that’s happening less and less as sensor technology improves. The latest D-SLR sensors don’t just have increased dynamic range, they’re able to capture shadow detail with less noise than […]
Lightroom portrait tips to put power into your people shots
You’ll probably want to take a softly softly approach with female portraits, but male subjects usually demand a different style. Here are some Lightroom Classic portrait tips for giving your pictures a more powerful, grittier feel. I want to give this outdoor shot (above) a grungy, contrasty look, and I’ve got a favourite set of […]
Change the mood with the Lightroom Radial Filter tool
The Radial Filter tool is new in Lightroom Classic and Lightroom CC and it can quickly transform the appearance of your pictures. You use it to create an elliptical shape which protects the centre of the image and changes the appearance of the outer areas. It might sound like a glorified vignette tool for drawing attention to […]
How to manage Lightroom RAW+JPEG pairs
Yesterday I looked at how Aperture handled RAW+JPEG pairs and today it’s the turn of Lightroom (now Lightroom Classic). At first glance it looks as if Lightroom RAW+JPEG pairs work in much the same way, but there is in fact a significant difference: Aperture imports both and lets you choose which one to display; Lightroom […]
How to use Lightroom Smart Previews
Lightroom 5 brought a whole bunch of exciting enhancements, but they weren’t all headline-grabbing editing tools – Adobe also introduced Smart Previews, which could be the most important advance of all for those of use with image collections too large to store on an internal drive. I do my day-to-day work on a laptop with […]
How to stamp your photos with the Lightroom watermark tools
Many photographers are worried that the moment they post their photographs online they’ll be copied and passed off as someone else’s, or used by others without the photographer’s knowledge and permission. I’m sure that does happen, but I also see things from a slightly different perspective. I work on a magazine where we find lots […]
How to save photos at a fixed size with a Lightroom Export preset
Lightroom doesn’t directly edit your original photos, so even though your pictures look different in Lightroom when you edit them, these adjustments exist only within Lightroom. If you want to send an edited version to someone else or for use on a website, for example, you need to ‘Export’ a new version of the picture […]